BBH wins £20m Barclays brief

Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has been appointed as the lead agency on Barclays’ &£20m advertising account in place of incumbent Leagas Delaney.

Leagas will remain on the roster until the end of the year, but its future with Barclays after that has not been decided. A Barclays spokesman says that any new work given to the agency will be for “selected key projects”.

BBH’s appointment, which comes without a pitch, was made by Barclays’ group marketing director Simon Gulliford, who worked with the agency – and Starcom Motive – when he was at EMAP. He left the publishing company in April to join Barclays and appointed Starcom Motive as Barclays’ media agency last month (MW July 5).

Gulliford says the decision to bring BBH on board was made “to get a fresh view from an agency currently not working with any of our group businesses”.

Leagas was appointed to the business three years ago. It created Barclays’ controversial “Big” campaign, aired at the same time as the bank was closing some of its branches. The series of ads, which reportedly cost millions to make, starred Anthony Hopkins and Tim Roth among others.

BBH’s first task will be to develop a brand strategy for the bank, although Barclays claims there are no plans to ditch the “Big” campaign.

The bank reviewed its below-the-line roster in January this year. It currently uses 16 agencies.